3D Voxel Mushroom Animation Tutorial

This guide walks you through how to generate a looping 3D voxel animation of mushrooms using SpatialStudio. The script creates a magical mushroom grove with caps that glow, stems that sway gently, and spores floating in the air, all inside a cubic 3D space, then saves the animation to a .splv file.

What this script does

Creates a 3D scene of size 128×128×128
Spawns 6 mushrooms of varying sizes, each with:
- A textured cap with natural color variations
- A sturdy stem that sways subtly in the breeze
- Glowing spots and highlights for a magical effect
Adds floating spores that drift through the air
Animates the grove for 8 seconds at 30 FPS with gentle swaying motion
Outputs the file mushroom.splv that you can play in your viewer

How it works (simplified)

Voxel volume Each frame is a 3D grid filled with RGBA values (SIZE × SIZE × SIZE × 4).
Mushroom cap Caps are drawn as flattened spheres with realistic color gradients and spotted patterns.
Mushroom stem Each mushroom gets a cylindrical stem that gently sways with wind-like motion.
Glow effects Bright spots are added to mushroom caps to create a bioluminescent appearance.
Floating spores Small particles drift through the scene with natural Brownian motion.
Animation loop A normalized time variable t cycles from 0 → 2π, ensuring the motion loops smoothly.
Encoding Frames are passed into splv.Encoder, which writes them into the .splv video file.

Try it yourself

Install requirements first:

pip install spatialstudio numpy tqdm

Then copy this script into mushroom.py and run:

python mushroom.py

Full Script

import numpy as np
from spatialstudio import splv
from tqdm import tqdm

# Scene setup
SIZE, FPS, SECONDS = 128, 30, 8
FRAMES = FPS * SECONDS
CENTER_X = CENTER_Y = CENTER_Z = SIZE // 2
OUT_PATH = "../outputs/mushroom.splv"

# Mushroom settings
MUSHROOM_COUNT = 6
CAP_RADIUS_BASE = 12
STEM_HEIGHT = 20
SPORE_COUNT = 25

def add_voxel(volume, x, y, z, color):
    if 0 <= x < SIZE and 0 <= y < SIZE and 0 <= z < SIZE:
        volume[x, y, z, :3] = color
        volume[x, y, z, 3] = 255

def generate_mushroom_cap(volume, cx, cy, cz, color, radius, t, mushroom_id):
    for dx in range(-radius, radius+1):
        for dy in range(-3, 4):
            for dz in range(-radius, radius+1):
                # Create flattened sphere for cap
                dist_xz = np.sqrt(dx*dx + dz*dz)
                if dist_xz <= radius and abs(dy) <= 3:
                    # Add natural texture variation
                    texture = np.sin(dx*0.4 + dz*0.3 + t*0.2) * 0.15
                    brightness = 0.8 + texture
                    
                    # Add spots pattern
                    spot_pattern = np.sin(dx*0.8) * np.sin(dz*0.8) * np.sin(t*0.1 + mushroom_id)
                    if spot_pattern > 0.6:
                        brightness += 0.4
                    
                    final_color = tuple(min(255, int(c * brightness)) for c in color)
                    add_voxel(volume, cx+dx, cy+dy, cz+dz, final_color)

def generate_mushroom_stem(volume, cx, cy, cz, t, mushroom_id):
    stem_color = (222, 184, 135)  # Burlywood
    sway_x = np.sin(t * 1.2 + mushroom_id * 0.5) * 2
    sway_z = np.cos(t * 0.8 + mushroom_id * 0.3) * 1
    
    for i in range(STEM_HEIGHT):
        height_ratio = i / STEM_HEIGHT
        stem_x = cx + int(sway_x * height_ratio)
        stem_y = cy - 4 - i
        stem_z = cz + int(sway_z * height_ratio)
        
        # Create cylindrical stem with slight thickness variation
        thickness = 2 + int(np.sin(i * 0.3) * 0.5)
        for dx in range(-thickness, thickness+1):
            for dz in range(-thickness, thickness+1):
                if dx*dx + dz*dz <= thickness*thickness:
                    # Add stem texture
                    brightness = 0.9 + np.sin(i*0.2 + dx*0.1)*0.1
                    final_color = tuple(int(c * brightness) for c in stem_color)
                    add_voxel(volume, stem_x+dx, stem_y, stem_z+dz, final_color)

def generate_mushroom_glow(volume, cx, cy, cz, radius, t, mushroom_id):
    glow_color = (255, 255, 200)  # Soft yellow glow
    intensity = 0.7 + 0.3 * np.sin(t * 2.0 + mushroom_id * 0.7)
    
    for i in range(8):
        angle = (i / 8.0) * 2 * np.pi + t * 0.5
        gx = cx + int((radius * 0.7) * np.cos(angle))
        gz = cz + int((radius * 0.7) * np.sin(angle))
        gy = cy + 1
        
        if intensity > 0.5:  # Only show glow when intensity is high enough
            for dx in range(-1, 2):
                for dy in range(-1, 2):
                    for dz in range(-1, 2):
                        if dx*dx + dy*dy + dz*dz <= 2:
                            add_voxel(volume, gx+dx, gy+dy, gz+dz, glow_color)

def generate_floating_spores(volume, t):
    spore_color = (255, 255, 150)  # Light yellow
    np.random.seed(42)  # For consistent spore positions
    
    for i in range(SPORE_COUNT):
        # Each spore follows a unique path
        base_x = np.random.randint(20, SIZE-20)
        base_y = np.random.randint(40, SIZE-20)
        base_z = np.random.randint(20, SIZE-20)
        
        # Add floating motion
        offset_x = np.sin(t * 0.8 + i * 0.3) * 15
        offset_y = np.cos(t * 0.6 + i * 0.5) * 8
        offset_z = np.sin(t * 1.1 + i * 0.7) * 12
        
        spore_x = int(base_x + offset_x)
        spore_y = int(base_y + offset_y)
        spore_z = int(base_z + offset_z)
        
        # Fade spores in and out
        fade = 0.5 + 0.5 * np.sin(t * 1.5 + i * 0.4)
        if fade > 0.3:
            add_voxel(volume, spore_x, spore_y, spore_z, spore_color)

def generate_mushroom_grove(volume, t):
    mushroom_colors = [
        (220, 20, 60),    # Crimson
        (255, 69, 0),     # Red Orange
        (255, 140, 0),    # Dark Orange
        (184, 134, 11),   # Dark Goldenrod
        (128, 0, 128),    # Purple
        (75, 0, 130),     # Indigo
    ]
    
    for i in range(MUSHROOM_COUNT):
        # Arrange mushrooms in a natural cluster
        angle = (i / MUSHROOM_COUNT) * 2 * np.pi
        distance = 20 + 10 * np.sin(i * 0.8)
        
        mx = CENTER_X + int(distance * np.cos(angle))
        my = CENTER_Y + 10 + int(3 * np.sin(t * 0.5 + i * 0.2))  # Slight bobbing
        mz = CENTER_Z + int(distance * np.sin(angle))
        
        # Vary mushroom sizes
        radius = CAP_RADIUS_BASE + int(4 * np.sin(i * 0.6))
        color = mushroom_colors[i % len(mushroom_colors)]
        
        generate_mushroom_cap(volume, mx, my, mz, color, radius, t, i)
        generate_mushroom_stem(volume, mx, my, mz, t, i)
        generate_mushroom_glow(volume, mx, my, mz, radius, t, i)

def generate_scene(volume, t):
    generate_mushroom_grove(volume, t)
    generate_floating_spores(volume, t)

enc = splv.Encoder(SIZE, SIZE, SIZE, framerate=FPS, outputPath=OUT_PATH, motionVectors="off")

for frame in tqdm(range(FRAMES), desc="Growing mushroom grove"):
    volume = np.zeros((SIZE, SIZE, SIZE, 4), dtype=np.uint8)
    t = (frame / FRAMES) * 2*np.pi
    generate_scene(volume, t)
    enc.encode(splv.Frame(volume, lrAxis="x", udAxis="y", fbAxis="z"))

enc.finish()
print(f"Created {OUT_PATH}")

Next steps

Change MUSHROOM_COUNT to create a larger or smaller grove.
Modify mushroom_colors to experiment with different mushroom varieties.
Adjust SPORE_COUNT to make the scene more or less magical.
Add ground terrain by creating a textured base layer.
Experiment with different glow colors for bioluminescent effects.

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